Key SPD leader resigns, citing health problems

BERLIN — Problems continued to pile up for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) on Monday as one of its top politicians announced he is stepping down due to health problems.

Kevin Kühnert, the SPD’s general secretary, rose to become one of the most well-known faces of the party, serving as its defender-in-chief on television and radio.

“Unfortunately I am not healthy,” the 35-year-old politician said in a letter to SPD members. “I need the energy required for my office and the election campaign to get healthy again.”

A year ahead of a general election, Kühnert’s resignation comes as a new challenge for the already struggling SPD. In the European Parliament election in June, the party recorded its worst result in a national vote in more than a century. The party is currently polling at 16 percent nationally, nearly 10 percentage points below its result in the last federal election in 2021. At the same time, approval ratings for the SPD-led coalition are at a historic low.

The SPD earned a reprieve in the eastern state of Brandenburg last month, edging out the far right in a hard-fought contest. But the local SPD’s lead candidate in the state won in no small part because he distanced himself from the party’s national leaders, including Scholz.

Given the party’s low poll numbers, finding a replacement for Kühnert is not necessarily an easy task. Kühnert was a fixture on evening political talk shows in Germany, often attacking the SPD’s political opponents.

Lars Klingbeil, one of the SPD’s national leaders, expressed confidence that the party will be able to organize ahead of the general election despite the loss of Kühnert.

“We want to win this election campaign,” Klingbeil told reporters. “We will do everything we can to position ourselves professionally and my firm conviction is that success can be organized.”

Proposals for Kühnert’s successor will be discussed at a gathering of the party leadership on Monday evening and announced in due time, Saskia Esken, the SPD’s other national leader, said.

Kühnert’s resignation comes just two weeks after the two national leaders of the Greens — one of the three parties in the current coalition government — announced that they will step down following a string of poor election results.